The Circular Staircase

But being an unmarried woman, with the handicap of my sex, my first acquaintance with crime will probably be my last. Indeed, it came near enough to being my last acquaintance with anything.Rachael Innes in The Circular Staircase Perhaps Rachael Innes would not have taken a summer rental on a sprawling mansion by the sea if she had known it was haunted. By the time she had spent the second--mostly sleepless--night in Sunnyside, the house proved not only haunted but the site of a murder. To make matters worse, that very night she received news of a spectacular bank failure whose engineer might be under her roof.